Mason Winfield - Supernatural Saratoga: Haunted Places and Famous Ghosts of the Spa City

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Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2009 by Mason Winfield

All rights reserved

First published 2009

e-book edition 2012

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.61423.523.1

print edition ISBN 978.1.59629.700.5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winfield, Mason.

Supernatural Saratoga : haunted places and famous ghosts of the spa city / Mason Winfield.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-59629-700-5

1. Ghosts--New York (State)--Saratoga. 2. Haunted places--New York (State)--Saratoga. 3. Tales--New York (State)--Saratoga. I. Title.

BF1472.U6W576 2009

133.10974748--dc22

2009036416

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For Irving Feldman
Poet, teacher and friend

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

SPAS, STEEDS AND SPIRITS

I

The derivation of the name Saratoga is in debate. It surely comes from some Native American word, but a number of meanings have been proposed, including Hillside Country of the Great River, Place of Swift Water, Place of Herrings or Place of Heel Tracks. Author Joe Bruchac has suggested an Abenaki translation: Medicine Waters. That, especially, would make sense. The Native Americans came here because of the springs. They drank and bathed in the waters and hunted the animals that came to the salt licks.

The name could be a little deceptive, too. The county and region we call Saratoga today once comprised two distinct areas. Kayaderossera, the Kaydeross to the Native Americans and early settlers, was the territory above the angle of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, generally cut off by the Kaydeross Creek. The part called Saratoga is smallerthe area east of Saratoga Lake bounded by the Hudson. Even the town originally called Saratoga is todays Schuylerville, and the Battle of Saratoga didnt take place in the village. It was fought mostly in Stillwater.

From the beginning, the Saratoga region hosted a number of guests. It was routinely crisscrossed by travelers and traders, and many cultural influences have had an impact on the region, beginning with overlapping Native American groups. The Dutch influence radiated strongly throughout the Hudson Valley. French, English and American contingents held sway over this region during the colonial period, and it experienced plenty of action in the various wars. By the twentieth century, the Kaydeross and Saratoga had become significant cultural melting pots, even though this may not have been their public face. Still, the Saratoga region would never have become what it is today without its namesake springs.

There are at least eighteen natural, underground water generators in the city today and numerous others outside of its boundaries. They are caused by a unique tossing of the geological strata here, bringing things that were once deeply hidden into the light. Some springs were known to the Native Americans, particularly High Rock Spring, next to which the first white settlements started in the 1770s. By the early 1800s, a substantial tourist trade based on the healing springs was up and running. Hotels and service industries quickly followed. The resort community brought with it a taste for the high life: gambling, horse racing and speakeasies. In that regard, Saratoga started to seem like a smaller and much more pastoral New York City.

Saratoga Springs reputation as a summer hotspot has always attracted celebrities. Today, the region has many claims to fame. When Saratoga Springs comes to mind, the average person probably thinks of horses, dance and the high life as readily as natural fountains emanating from the earth. All of thisand the simple allure of being someplace that everybody else wants to beaccounts for the boom that Saratoga Springs, with few downward cycles, has enjoyed for more than two centuries.

Today, Saratoga Springs is the heart of this watery, hilly, historic region. It features an abundance of open land, four full seasons (including a vigorous winter), high arts and culture, measureless charm and a sheer sense of vibrancy that we would need a writer like F. Scott Fitzgerald to summarize in a single phrase. People from everywhere pass through Saratoga Springs on their way to and from northern New England or as a delightful stopover on a trip east or west.

Saratoga Springs is stereotyped as a resort for the rich. While hardly for the faint of wallet, this stereotype may only be true of Saratoga Springs in the month of Augustracing seasonwhen the city population triples. Saratoga Springs is a place of glamour and intrigue rather than outright splendor. It is a place that has a solid core, but it also puts up a veneer. Things are not always as they look, and everyone who knows the place knows that. But wherever there is a confluence of dramatic history, overlapping cultures and celebrity glitter, there is also psychic folklore. This book is about Saratogas supernatural traditions.

II

When it comes to ghosts and the American publics relationship to them, there seems to be no middle ground between contemptuous disbelief and hook-line-and-sinker adherence to what I call the TV theory. The TV theory holds that ghosts are the spirits of the dead and are back with unfinished business. In the circles of research parapsychology, this default presumption is regarded as nave.

Consider the typical eyewitness psychic report. Most are hopelessly fragmentary. Someone hears a funny sound, possibly a voice. A small object moves in a way that no law of physics can account for. A light or appliance turns itself on or off. An apparitiona ghostmanifests, is visible for a couple of heartbeats, makes no sound whatsoever and then vanishes in one of several ways. In fact, the average psychic experience resembles the TV ghost about as much as what you catch in your mousetrap resembles Mickey.

In some cases, psychic experiences do appear to carry a sense of order, and the lowest common denominator may be to suspect that some unknown force has acted. But those instances are rare and easy to distinguish from the typical report from a haunted house.

Too many people take the position that any snippet of psychic experience is the attempt of a spirit to communicate and that any detectable anomalya light blob on a photograph or a funny sound on a much-manipulated recordingis one more sign of a message. This is like believing you can deduce the full picture of a jigsaw puzzle from just a couple of scattered pieces. We need some alternate perspectives.

There are some interesting patterns in the way eyewitnesses relate their experiences, and there are correlations among the types of sites that attract generations of ghost stories. We do not need to talk about spirits to make some points.

III

Some of the tastiest bits in this book, including Native American and folkloric material, come from late Saratoga writers like Cornelius Durkee, Nathaniel Bartlett Sylvester, William Stone and Evelyn Barrett Britten. I broke up laughing more than once at their accounts, which perpetuated the morals of an earlier age that, truthfully, may not have been maintained in any. Historian Martha Stonequist has written many informative articles that were helpful to this book. Historians Teri Blasko and Jamie Parillo helped me via last-minute phone conversations, as did my Saratoga friend, novelist Jeff Durstewitz. I had on-site research help of all types from Haunted History Ghost Walks tour guides Winifred Bowen, Jeff Brady and Rebecca Codner. They researched, interviewed and checked facts.

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